


lost and found

by bettercrazythanboring



Category: Morning Glories
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Established Relationship, F/M, Gen, Identity Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-28
Updated: 2014-01-28
Packaged: 2018-01-10 09:53:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1158223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bettercrazythanboring/pseuds/bettercrazythanboring
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Casey couldn't make up her mind whether she wanted Hunter to chase after her or stay put when she ran away, and the one time he didn't have to do either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lost and found

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place a few months after #29 and many relationships have changed during that time.

**01.**

The dull, silver moonlight makes metal out of your skin. So shiny, so durable, so  _safe_.

Sometimes I think you're my armor, Hunter.

I grew up detesting the word, you know. "Armor". My dad would go on and on about how it saved his ass a thousand times in the field, and all could think was that if he'd just been a little bit quicker, a little bit smarter, a little bit  _better_ , he wouldn't have needed the armor in the first place.

So I guess that's what armor is for. The times we make mistakes. The times we're not good enough by ourselves.

I tiptoe to your bed and nearly trip over Ike's chaotically discarded clothes, intensely hoping that he's the one who took them off. The pack of someone's Cheetos cracks beneath my feet and I freeze at once, my woolen sock—and the foot inside it—staying on it for half a minute before I dare to move again.

Drawing in a careful breath, I try to remember whether I prefer to rip the bandage off slowly or all in one go, but, by the time I realize I've never needed to use a of bandage in my life, my foot is already off the plastic and no one has woken up from the noise that could've made the dead complain.

I'm still not used to saying "we". Not when grouping myself with people who are capable of making mistakes, not when pairing myself up with you. Maybe I never will be.

But I  _am_  part of both.

I finally make it to your bed and my lip seems to bite itself when I see you. You must be the only one of us whose dreams push the horrors of this place out instead of inviting them in. I envy you for that as much as I want to stare at your sleeping, peaceful face all night.

Your forehead is so rarely relaxed like this. You're always worrying or being afraid, or thinking so visibly hard that I  _know_  there's a wealth of power locked away inside your head. If only you'd stick to the rules.

You're the worst guard of that chest, honestly. By my understanding, you're supposed to evaluate all the questers and send away the unworthy ones. So the very design of having that lock means that someone, someday, will come and be granted the key that sets you loose. That sets you free and lets you wreak the havoc you were always meant to inflict on these people.

But, no, if it were up to you, you'd never let  _anyone_  see what's inside that brain of yours.

Butthead.

My arms rest on your mattress, along with my chin, and a sigh escapes me. You twitch in your sleep and mutter something that sounds vaguely like my name, and, before I realize what I'm doing, one of my feet is on the cold, sharp metal edge of Jun's bed and I'm propping myself up on my arms to get a better look at you.

I've seen you sleep exactly seven times. Some I regard with fondness, some I've purged from memory. But the one thing that's always remained the same is that your hair stays glued to your forehead. How does it do that, Hunter? How is it that, out of seven billion people on the planet, you're the one who never gets bed hair?

Just as I think about brushing it back, about maybe rustling it a little bit, about dragging my fingers through your thick, red curls, you smile. It's a half-smile and I'm not even sure your facial muscles realize what they're doing, but  _I_  sure do.

You're looking  _happy_ , something you do far too rarely and far too quietly.

I know I have something to do with that and I promise to change it. After tonight.

Your chest moves rhythmically with your breath and I should ask you sometime whether you know how calming the sound is. Like a slow breeze that comes after a hurricane, enveloping everything in a soft, cuddly blanket made up of air and the notion that soon things will be okay again.

Or, at least, that's how it makes  _me_  feel. Ike would probably say you should have your lungs checked.

But I've lost count of the times I close my eyes during a conversation and only minutes later realize I'm not paying attention to anything but the sound of you, being one with the atmosphere.

I touch my fingertip to your cheek—your soft, steel cheek. I don't want to wake you, or even have you know that I was ever here to begin with, but the words you said today won't leave my mind.

I know what I have to do and nothing's getting in my way this time. It'll get done. It's just... easier to be supported by your mere presence so close to me than by you trying to talk me out of it.

You'll understand. You always do.

As I move my finger, bits of that armory moonlight transfer from your skin to mine and, for a moment, I think I feel some of your strength seeping into me. I clench my fist and lay my lips lightly upon yours. Just for a second.

Does it ever occur to you that we were named wrong, I wonder?

Beyond the fact that you acutely feel your physical weakness, I mean. I remember plenty of you talking about  _that_.

I also remember the time you stood above me, with sweat glistening in the firelight and limbs burning with need. I remember how, though I'd already stolen all your breath—for safekeeping—you kept breathing anyway and going, going,  _going_... Until there was nowhere left to go and one of those rare, happy smiles bloomed on your face while I wondered how on earth we both managed to survive through the pleasure so great it bordered on reconstructing our molecules from scratch.

That night stuck in my memory way better than the sight of you fainting after running two miles  _ever_  could.

No, what I mean is that  _I'm_  the vengeful soldier, the one whose alliances lean only toward survival, orders, and the first person who managed to skewer my perspective of the battle. (Not the one who's  _right_. Just the first one who says anything that makes a lick of sense.)

 _I'm_  the one who never bothers to find out the absolute truth in fear that it will remove any hope I have left and leave me with nothing to blindly follow. Nothing to hold onto.

 _You're_  the brave one. You're the one who looks at people even when they don't look back. You're the one campaigning to compare notes while the rest of us stumble on our own. You're the one who thinks for himself. You're the one who'd find the exact butterfly that flapped its wings in Africa if it meant you could stop the rain from soaking your friends.  _You're_  the one who wouldn't shoot a gun even if I stuck it into your hands with the safety off and the laser pointer glowing bright red over the heart of your worst enemy.

By all possible origins of our names,  _you're_  Casey.

And  _I'm_  Hunter.

And I want nothing more than to kiss you awake right now on those pale, thin lips that are so good at whispering encouragement when I need it most. To grab onto the arms that have picked me up time and time again when all the resilience I had for myself was not enough and I needed to borrow some of yours. To grab onto you and never let go.

But I'm not you. I don't know how to let myself… and not lose  _me_  in the process.

I hope you wake up happy. Wherever I am by then. I won't leave you a note; I wouldn't know what to say anyway. But I promise you I'll be back. Tonight, tomorrow, a week from now, a year from now… I'll be back.

I'll make them pay and then we can go on that picnic we've been putting off for weeks.

Yeah. That's what we'll do.

It's weird how much I could've sworn the moonlight makes a high-pitched whine when our skins break contact. Or maybe that's just me. Protesting somewhere within. With a heaviness in my lips, I withdraw my hand from your cheek for good, climb down from the bed, and I  _would_  make a bet with myself about who the lego I just stepped on belongs to, but it's apparently pressing on the same nerves that allow me to form coherent thoughts.

(Nevertheless, I go with Ike when the blinding stars in my vision subside.)

Underneath the mess, I see the vaguely pink, thickly-roped carpet that you and Jun keep by your bed solely because the perverted son of a bitch hates it and I, too, smile. It's not like I've been in your room that many times, but there's just something about that monstrosity… If I had to choose five things, five images in the world that remind me of you, this would be one of them.

So I take off my socks and I curl my toes in the carpet, and I snuggle into the hoodie you lent to me last month before you realized that taking it off would leave you shirtless. I picture you, blushing all the way to your navel, and I pretend that the hoodie is you being my armor.

It's warm, just like you, and that's when I realize it's not an armor, but rather a sword. You give me strength, Hunter, and you're too good to be my last line of defense, the last safety net to ensure that I'm still alive when I've already lost. I should be proud to  _charge_  at those who wronged us in your name, even if you won't harm a hair on their head yourself.

And then I put my socks back on, tiptoe to where I left my shoes, and survey the rest of the room for any signs of me. My mom used to say that the Earth's core is what keeps us tethered to this planet, but our loved ones are the tethers connecting us to this  _universe_.

I've never felt the truth of it more than I do now, when my fingers itch to touch you again, when my head keeps turning back to you as the rest of me tries to leave, when the farther I get from you, the colder I feel.

But it's probably just because all my other gravity centers have been ripped from me. All that attachment… It has to go somewhere, right?

I guess I've chosen your for that.

I rub my temple with one hand and tie back my hair with the other. Maybe if we'd met under different circumstances, the thought wouldn't send freezing fear to my fingertips, wouldn't push energy into my calfs and whisper "run".

Maybe I would stay... and do it without any guilt.

Then again, what does another life matter, really? I'm here and I'm angry, and  _hell_  will rain down on Lara Hodge's head tonight in fiery,  _painful_  little droplets. I don't know what she did to deserve it  _this_  time, but something in me says whatever I do to her won't be enough. Something in me wants to punish her for crimes I was never told of.

I straighten, draw in a shallow breath, close the door with you on its other end, and march off to what is likely to be my doom.

_i have been dreaming of all i could have done differently; i only ever seem to say what i mean while you sleep_

* * *

 

**02.**

"Okay, which one of you had the bright idea to drag him along?" you say in the abandoned halls we began to frequent in the dark hours before dawn one sad night and never stopped. It's the most irritated I've seen you in days.

Jade grimaces and groans with a shrug. "When do I ever think things through?" she mutters under her breath.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it," you say to Ike before the offended asshole can open his mouth. "The mere notion of it is crazy. What else is new, you interrupting douchebag. But, in addition to  _all the things Jade and I just listed_ ," you say, gesturing wildly—and partially slapping him in the face, "I have talked to a her from the future and I keep having dreams about dead philosophers, and this school is obsessed with circles."

"Pity. I much prefer dodecahedrons," Ike manages through a yawn, swatting your hand away with pointed disinterest. "It's  _so_  much easier to bang in dodecahedrons."

" _Shut up_." You jab him with an elbow—harder than the last time two minutes ago—then frown and turn back. "Wait, what?"

Ike tightens his lips and flings an arm around your shoulders. "Hunter, boy, did I just out-geek you?" He clicks his tongue. "I think I just out-geeked you. Well,  _clearly_  the world is coming to an end." The boy claps his hands expectantly. "Who's up for an orgy?"

"Oh, fuck off," you say and push him away.

"Gladly," he says and licks his lips with a popping noise. "Red?"

"No," Jade says, leaning against the wall next to me with barely a glance at him.

"Then why am I even  _here_?" Ike complains and kicks a potted plant like a child.

It falls over with a dull thud and he almost imperceptibly shakes his head at it. I think I see him cast his eyes to the ceiling.

"Because we're discussing strange occurrences," you say, "and didn't your own dad help cover up that time you, oh, I dunno,  _murdered_  him?"

Ike scowls at you. "'That conversation hasn't happened yet,' were his exact words, if I'm not mistaken," he mutters, badly impersonating Abraham, "and it's just  _more_  of the mindfuck bullshit these people are trying to force on us. Which does not exist. This is all a lie and they're batcrap crazy, the lot of them."

"Yeah,  _no duh_ , but so are you." Jade crosses her ankles to accompany her crossed arms.

"Oh, and  _you're_  not, Miss I-Kill-Myself-Every-Day-At-Precisely-Two-o'clock?"

Jade grimaces at him and I have to stifle a laugh. "What you just said is in no way even remotely true."

"I dunno, it's close enough." He shrugs almost apathetically. "But, look, you all know  _my_  big patricide secret—thank you for blabbing, by the way, Red—so can I just go back to bed and get some jagged alphabet letters? I have a very important booty call in the morning."

"Stay," I order and watch as he sinks down against the wall. His sullen pout puts a smile in my voice as I turn back to you. "You were saying?"

You look up at me, eyebrows high and lips loose. "Oh, well, that's, uh, that's all of them. All of mine," you correct. "At least that I can think of. So it's someone else's turn." You shrug and nod, and sigh when the silence drags on. "But, guys, I'm still not convinced the time thing isn't psychosomatic. My doctors were...  _very_  adamant about that."

There's something of a lost, sad puppy in you when you look down like that, and my arms nearly start to lift themselves to pull you into a hug. But that's neither the point of this meeting nor something I think I would survive, and I lower my fingers before you have the chance to notice.

Besides, I shouldn't be comparing you to animals. Probably. No matter how cute they are.

Or how cute  _you_  are.

"Trust me, Hunter, nothing here is just in our heads," Jade chimes in, examining her peeled nail polish. "You could be a real-life amnesiac Time Lord, for all you know."

I catch her eyes drift to where Ike squats below us a few times, but she says nothing. Not even when he starts playing with her shoelaces.

"Like, I said, I don't have any supernatural abilities besides annoying my father to the point where he'll frame me for murder or let me kill his twin brother, or something," Ike says, "so I guess that just leaves our Buffy to spill all her deep, dark abnormalities," the prick says and untangles his fingers from the shoelaces, leaving a messy, loose knot that Jade scowls at.

"Hopefully very quickly," he adds. "Whatcha say, Blondie? Boned any dangerous vamps lately? Want to describe these  _oh so unhealthy_  encounters in great detail?" He smirks. "FYI, I can get a set of fangs in about as much time as it takes Hunter here to unzip his pants, if that in any way changes your plans for the evening."

I pretend I didn't hear him.

"I've been thinking about that," I say. "And I…"

A sigh tickles the skin above my lips.

"I'm not entirely sure I remember."

You frown. "You mean the weird things?"

"Anything," I clarify, averting your eyes. I won't mention that it's why I chose to go last. You have enough to worry about. "My life's just… a little bit fuzzy, I guess."

I pace long and hard back and forth across the narrow hallway, keeping my eyes on the distant ends on either side. They're dark and dreary, and do absolutely nothing to help calm my fears, because I don't remember ever being in them before coming back from wherever I was.

My gaze runs over the numerous paintings and trophy cases scattered along the walls as I think and, when I turn again, it falls on your hunched stance as you watch me with no attempt at masking your concern. I hear the hushed whispers Jade and Ike exchange like they've been doing all week and make no attempt at deciphering them. The smell of cinders and rain finds me through the half-open windows, the remnants of a bonfire waning in the distance.

I keep pacing.

Twice, I suck in a breath and stop mid-step, raising my fist. I turn back toward them and you, the answers on the tip of my tongue, but then the thoughts and memories that had gathered—for about half a second—in one focus point in my mind scatter again, and I'm left with five million two thousand and three puzzle pieces that don't fit.

I resume my steps; they now border on the frantic.

Once, I pass you and the pucker in your brow makes me link our fingers in a fleeting gesture of reassurance that's gone as soon as my foot moves again and takes the rest of me with it.

I can't slow down. I won't stop. I'm afraid of what I'll find. I  _need_  to know.

Finally, the focus point comes back again and this time I don't turn back toward my co-conspirators, only close my eyes and try to visualize the memories.

"There's something I've seen scribbled on the Academy's walls," I say and pretend to ignore your relieved sigh. "Down in the basements and out in the sheds. 'The Hour of Our Release Draws Near'."

"You mean the  _outrageously_  obvious title of your rescue plan?" Ike asks.

"Yes, but I didn't come up with it," I say, still watching the darkness play with shapes behind my eyelids. "I read it in a book once. A long time ago."

"Ten bucks says the book is like a Bible in this place," I dimly hear Ike whisper.

"What was it about?" you ask.

"I… I don't remember." It's only half a realization. My memories have been hiding from me for weeks.  _Months_. "It was an unfinished, abandoned manuscript found in a monastery and she said I'd love it when she gave it to me," I say, "but I have no idea how it ended… or any memory of reading it."

I open my eyes, stare at the fingernails I don't remember being so short and jagged before Jade and I sneaked out tonight, and finally turn back at them.

"She who?" Jade asks while you look at me in a way that makes my heart drop to my ankles.

Ike holds up a finger. "And an estimate of her hotness, please."

I cross my arms. "Uh." This shouldn't be that hard to remember, should it? "My favorite teacher. From back… back home."

"How did she know about the manuscript?" Jade asks.

"No idea. I— Uh—" I press a palm to my forehead, checking if it's really heating up as much as it feels, and try to disguise it as brushing my hair back. You don't seem fooled.

"Her name was Miss, uh…. Miss Cl—"

I frown and bite my lip, swallowing roughly.

Amy I sweating? It feels like I'm sweating.

"Her name was Ms.  _Clarkson_  and we—"

My blood chills.  _"Oh my god."_

Ms. Clarkson.

My hand flies to my mouth and my legs give out. I collapse to the floor.

"Casey?  _Casey?!_ "

The woman everybody always said looked so much like me.

Everything goes black.

"'Oh my god'  _what?_  Don't tell me she taught  _drama_."

The woman who was a physics genius and pushed me to go to the Academy.

Cold air stings my throat.

"Whoa, whoa, are you choking? Guys,  _help!_ "

The woman who had the exact same birthmark on her neck as I do.

I'm gonna vomit.

"Casey, Casey, look at me!  _Breathe!_ "

The woman dating that cute teacher…

Whose,  _godfuckingdammit,_  whose face I can map out as well as my own, whose voice has somehow burrowed into the deepest corners of my being and made a home there, whose body I can feel under my fingertips even right now, when they are clammy and trembling, and covered by  _your_  palms.

I bite back bile and it scorches my gullet on its way back down, but I can't stop my fingers from clawing at my own skin and shredding it open.

"Shit, should we call for help? Hunter, can you hold her up?"

I don't let you.

The woman who went on maternity leave just a few months before I—

_No!_

"David," I whisper with lips about to collapse under the weight of my heart.

My eyes connect with yours in a split-second moment that I know brings neither of us anything but pain, and then I'm out of your arms and far away, stumbling through the dark on legs that won't hold me up, in heels that click like metal and remind me of her. Of  _me_.

I don't look back.

_i'm not a wreck, but i'm far from fully healed; i found these ghosts in me, these memories i can't keep_

* * *

 

**03.**

"So."

Your voice sends quick, cold ants crawling up my spine.

I know somewhere in my head that I'm the victim here, that I'm the wronged one, but still the resigned heartbreak that plagues the air between us guilts me into taking half the pity I reserved for myself and directing it at you.

"So."

The word is not an echo of yours; it's barely strong enough to be heard at all, let alone travel out into the world and get stronger each time it reaches a corner. No, it comes quiet and broken out of my mouth, coming up only briefly from the pool of tears I'm holding back, and returning to drowning in it when I can't even stammer out that one stupid sound.

Who am I?

That question  _does_  echo in my mind; it gets louder and more aggressive every time it smashes all other thoughts out of me and screams until I no longer realize I'm screaming too.

Who am I, Hunter? Do  _you_  know? Because I damn well don't.

Memories wage war within me. Thoughts and impressions and emotions set their sharp, metal hooks into my flesh—one by one—and tug, and twist, and  _rip_ , until all that's left of me is raw, bloody bone and tears that sting my eyes for hours on end. Stuck halfway between forming and dripping down on my clothes because this body can't decide whether it belongs to someone who is capable of crying.

Bare in every way but physical, I can see myself reflected in the glass door nearby; the skeleton staring back at me is not someone I recognize.

Not a skeleton, even. A mass of mutated features and lost lives, and shattered border lines.

It hasn't even been four months since I sat by the dinner table at lunchtime and made aerodynamically perfect paper planes for Dad's photography project, and laughed at a snide comment from Mom, and the warm, spring sunshine coming in through the backdoor lit up my life in ways I didn't notice and couldn't have guessed.

Hasn't been four months months since I thought I'd never have to think about killing a man or bargaining with one for my life, four months since I'd never seen a dead body before, four months since I made friends who were, for once, as brilliant as I was, whose lives I  _doomed_  for my own selfish reasons,  _four months since I thought my acceptance letter solidified my chances of a golden career in physics, four months since I thought I would be unearthing the secrets of the universe instead of taking part in destroying its very fabric._

It  _hasn't_  been four months; it's been so much longer.

(And  _so much_  less than that; mere days.)

Where did those lines go? When did I become someone who marched on without checking the terrain under her feet?

I don't feel myself, not like I used to. When I was whole and at peace and not built on lies and ice. But I do see it. I see all the parts of me more clearly than I ever have and I'm disgusted by each and every one of them, even as I wish I could take the memories back and just be  _one_  of those horrible parts of me. So that I didn't have to feel like this.

Doesn't even matter which. I just want to be whole again.

So what does that say about me? Where are the lines  _now_?

I can't find them, yet they're everywhere. Scattered, like the dead, sodden autumn leaves after a storm.

And you…

You.

There's no room in my mind for anyone but me—not now, when it feels like the slightest breath, the slightest word, the slightest  _touch_  will make me crumble in a way I never thought I could—but none of me can keep my thoughts from wandering back to you.

How unfair this must be, I think as I avoid your gaze. Not that you seem particularly intent on meeting mine. Not that either of us can really even see each other in this dark hallway.

After all, I'm three people at once and each of them has a vastly different opinion on you—and very different responses to the way we  _all_  know you feel about me. I'm half-scared I'll accidentally kill you if you come too close. I just want to chuck all these feelings out a window and weld a metal casing for my heart so that no one can ever get through again. Not you, not Tom, not Jade, not my parents, not David, not  _anyone_  else.

Love never brings anything but pain; that much I've learned.

I hear you inhale and the sound makes the hair on my arms stand up. My fingers twitch toward a gun that is no longer strapped to my hip and my mind recalls the floor plans without my authorization; adrenaline flows through me in a way I recognize well.

The attempt to relax my body from its tense, combat-ready position is a deliberate one.

And wow, plotting the quickest way to kill you is not a reaction I  _ever_  thought I'd have to hearing your breath.

But I don't move. I  _can't_. And neither do you.

You just keep breathing. Once, twice, and again, until the sound once more summons calm beaches before my eyes instead of knives painted red and decked with guts.

You breathe and it soothes me, as I used to think it always would.

But it won't, Hunter, and you should know this better than anyone after what I've told you. Should run as fast as you can. Should do anything but stand there, twelve paces away, and  _breathe_.

A part of me I thought I'd lost wants to say "I told you so". I  _knew_  we were better off as friends, I  _knew_  that it would end badly, one way or another, I  _knew_  that losing sight of our primary goal would screw everything up; that's why I fucking turned you down the first time, despite how much I wanted to say yes. But another part of me—the part built on a wobbling foundation of long-forgotten innocence and broken shards of sin—went against my better instincts... and look where that's gotten us.

I can't even look you in the eye and you sure as hell don't want me to.

This isn't right. There's something missing in my body and there's a surplus of something else, and I am  _this_  close to tearing my own skin off to sort it all out with no thought to what happens next.

Lightning flashes somewhere in the distance and I catch a glimpse of your face in that one moment, and that other part of me—the one that forgot about any missed picnics a long time ago—recoils from the image. The sight of you shouldn't send a tingling feeling through my chest, shouldn't make me want to run into your arms, won't make me want to kiss all your pain away, no, no,  _no_ , that impulse is not  _yours_ ; it belongs elsewhere!

It belongs to someone who's lost me and will never get me back, will never even know me in all the ways you know me!

How dare you be here when  _he isn't_ , Hunter? How dare you know me better than I ever gave him the chance to? How dare you stand there and not scream at me for betraying you?

You don't have the right!

Thunder roars with a banging crash and you jolt. I didn't notice before now how quiet this hall was. How the only sound was of you breathing.

How long have we not spoken a single word now?

I don't carry a watch anymore and I wouldn't trust yours if my life depended on it. I will never know how much time passed here. Only that it becomes denser and harder with every second I'm here with you. Or maybe that's just the air.

Choking me.

Because that last part of me—the one formed on lies I didn't know I had told—is rapidly realizing that there's really no conceivable way anyone could ever come back from "I barely thought about you for ten years while I made you think you were crazy, and I found a life with someone else that I could never find with you, and our baby— _my_  baby—killed the closest thing you had to a friend in this rotten place."

Which would be fine with the rest of me, but that just happens to be the part that I'm reasonably convinced is in love with you.

Dammit, Hunter.

My mouth tightens and I imagine letting myself cry.

I can picture it now. It wouldn't break me; I know that much now. But it might break this stasis.

You'd step forward with jerky, hesitant movements and ask if I was okay, and I would say nothing in response and pretend to be surprised that the first thing to come out of your mouth is not an accusation, but concern for me.

You'd pull me into your arms and it would be warm and familiar, and my fingers would dig into your shirt, and I would let myself wish that I had only been here a few days and my biggest worry was the murder of my parents. I'd feel horrible about something being more painful than losing them and you'd whisper something in my ear that makes perfect sense, lifts some of the weight off my chest, and brings out chagrin over not realizing that simple truth earlier.

I would be on the verge of crumbling, like I was the last time you held me like that, but your arms would hold all my shaking pieces together and keep me whole as I'd sob against you.

Like you did the last time.

I would try to pull back, aided by logic and reason and the desire to avoid hurting you worse, but you'd just hug me even closer and stroke my hair, and mutter things that—against all odds—give me courage and hope, and you wouldn't make a peep about anything else, any of the venomous or questioning words I keep expecting to come out of you. There wouldn't be any of that, despite how many things you'd want to say. You'd be kind to a fault.

And I'd let myself give in to your touch and, when it was over, find that maybe weakness wasn't so bad if I had someone to share it with.

The picture's as clear as day.

"So," I say instead. It doesn't come out any stronger than before.

You don't look up.

The vague silhouette I see from the corner of my eye almost seems frozen and I wonder if, amidst all the confusion and all the pain, I've stopped time. Or died. Or worse. But then you lean against the wall and cross your ankles, and brush the back of your neck with a palm.

I hear the exhaustion in your sigh even from all the way over here.

"So."

_i can't express the weight of this silence, but when it's filled with your breath, i seem to fear it less_

* * *

 

**04.**

"Should I even ask if you're coming?" Jade glances at me through the mirror, specks of dust and toothpaste murking her reflection.

I meet her gaze, hesitant to take my eyes off the papers scattered on my bed lest they disappear and I'm, once again, left with nothing. Her hair's messy, as always, and her skirt's pleated, like always, and she has the faintest trace of Ike's scent on her. Like always.

"It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye," I mutter, pointing at her black eyeliner that hovers perilously close to her eyeball.

She frowns. "Oh. Right. I always forget I'm holding these things," she says and puts the finishing touches on her make-up. Then she waltzes over and puts her arms on the mattress of my bed.

It's Zoe's.

I borrowed the top bunk the first night after…  _this_  happened. My own bed below felt like a stranger. This is different.

This bed is used to lost girls.

"So," Jade says, straining her neck to see what I'm working on. "Need me to bring you lunch?"

"Yeah," I reply and shoot her a grateful smile. "Thanks."

She pats my hand cautiously. "Any time, Case." Her gaze travels to Pamela's glowering form across the room. "Just tell me if you need anything else."

I nod. "Sure thing."

As soon as I figure out what it is.

She departs with one more scowl at our unpredictable roommate and leaves me with my charts and character sheets, and newfound/old mind powers that I use to get out of having to go to classes.

I'm trying to understand the various facets of me—and, in doing so, maybe consolidate them all into one manageable person of unchartable maturity levels—but I've already been at this for a week and the  _only_  thing I'm actually sure of is that there's no part of me that doesn't want Jade Ellsworth as a best friend.

Despite what kind of company she may keep.

I would be lost without that redhead, I think as I set fire to all my charts and papers. They're doing me no good. Instead I think I'll go talk to Hodge. Air a few things out, maybe demand some others.

I can do that much, can't I?

The two weeks I've spent in this room suggest otherwise, but, still, I go. These four walls are suffocating me almost as much as the skin over my body is. I have to do  _something_.

It ends with me punching Lara. (Again.) But it helps.

Even if it makes things even complicated than before. The memories that come rushing back as my fist collides with her face—the anger, pain, and vengeance I felt and still feel about how my life as Danielle ultimately ended—make my head that much heavier, make it that much harder to concentrate, make me that much more  _torn_.

I don't pay attention to anything that isn't one of my feet moving across the tiled floor on my way back. It's hard enough to walk on these legs that don't feel like my own, but to do it with a head that throws obstacles at me with every step—second-guessing, questioning, whispering poison in my ear—is nothing short of painful.

Then, by chance, I look up to see where I am—whether I'm even going in the right direction—and my eyes land on you, walking through the hall with fists stuffed into the pockets of the jacket you were wearing the first time you kissed me.

I promptly turn a corner.

The blue wall catches me as I stumble forward and clutch a suddenly freezing hand to my mouth. I see it all, feel it with every fiber of my being—what I had to do to become someone you could no longer love. To become someone who couldn't love you.

The breakfast I didn't have climbs up my throat and stings my tongue. My hand slips off my mouth, clammy and slick with saliva, and I'm sure I'll unload right then and there.

But among the images of death and manipulation—and my own detached face staring foggily back at me in a dingy motel room that hasn't been cleaned in eight months—is your smile, the one you only seem to find when  _I'm_  around.

Your fiery hair burns through the pain and destruction of my soul. The warmth of your touch holds me when bricks fall down, knocked from their castle walls within me, and I'm in the way. The cool green of your eyes soothes the wounds left in the wake of it all. And if you kissed me, I almost think I'd be okay.

It's scary how much I want to hear your voice for real  _right now_ , not some faint echo from another lifetime.

Or is it someone else that I want? Someone who's not a mere corner away?

Do I want anyone  _at all_?

My legs lose all feeling the longer I struggle with the urge to peer around the corner and just see you one more time. I couldn't handle it, I tell myself. I don't  _want_  to handle it, I tell myself.

But I'm not handling anything as it is, I think as I sink down against the wall, silent tears painting my face. My skirt hikes up and my ankles bend awkwardly to make room for the rest of me on the narrow plane, and there's a good chance my underwear is showing in at least two places, but I'll  _twist the neck_  of anyone who dares to look my way.

Whoever I am, however long I've lived, this… this  _thing_  in my chest that pulls me in a thousand different directions until I can no longer tell which way is up… It's a stranger.

An unwelcome intrusion. A mathematical impossibility.

I'm  _better_  than this; I always have been. I'm strong and I'm tough and I go after what I want, kicking down every door in my way until the rest of them cower in fear and open on their own.

And the thing about me is that—whether I'm Casey Blevins or Danielle Clarkson, or someone else that shouldn't exist—I  _always_  know what I want.

The sum of my parts… it doesn't add up to this. I have no way of explaining myself.

I close my eyes and bite back a whimper. I can't even tell if I'm calming down anymore. I've lost my connection to my body that gravely. How much farther can I fall?

My palm is still cold when I wipe my cheek with the back of it. My legs still numb. But when I slowly lift my eyelids and try to see anything but the dark again, my gaze doesn't land on the wall as I expected it to.

It connects right with yours.

You're half-kneeling a few paces away beside the opposite corner, hands on your knees, backpack hanging off one shoulder. I hear your unsteady breath and see the twitch of your fingers toward me, and my breath gets knocked out of me by how much you're  _Hunter_  right now.

How can any human being be this actually  _physically_  pulled in different directions by nothing but itself? How is any of this possible?

The air turns bitter on my tongue. Cold sweat fills my nostrils, which doesn't make any sense because I'm suddenly so warm, so unbelievably overheating that I'd throw myself into ice water just to have the hell stop.

I don't blink. Even when my eyes overflow, I only stare at you.

You stare right back.

I can't read you, not like I once thought I could, but I think I see a war in you that mirrors my own. Maybe.

I'm not sure of anything anymore.

A couple times your lips part and I tense in anticipation of hearing your voice—will it kill me or save me, or do nothing? But then you blink and almost look away, and your eyebrows draw together, and your mouth closes, and I can't tell if I'm disappointed or relieved.

I wonder what you were going to say, each and every time it happens.

Once, I open my mouth, too. You straighten and perk up, and I think I see hope in your eyes.

It's that hope that makes me forget what I thought would be important enough to risk shattering myself to say. And your face falls... and we just stare at each other.

So long that, as I refuse to blink, the world narrows—bit by bit—into an eye-stinging blackness that drowns out everything but your green, green, irises. Nothing else reaches me.

I almost feel at peace in that moment. As if hypnotized.

But then someone walks by and breaks the connection and I flinch away, hugging myself. My knees go up and my gaze goes to anywhere that isn't you, and my heart explodes.

You're just a boy. Just a stupid, naive boy who got caught in the crosshairs of an endless battle. So incredibly powerful and you don't even know it.

You're immature and you make unnecessary pop culture references, and I used to teach three of you in every period from eight to three. You have a good heart and so much bravery, and you're going to go on and do the most amazing things, but you're  _just a boy_.

(A boy who could cheer me up with a single word, a boy who came through at just the right moment, a boy who never let all his hardships deter his optimism, Hunter,  _you're just a boy_.)

I stopped being just a girl so long ago. I wish I could be her again. Someone who would smile when you awkwardly asked her out, someone whose whole face would light up when you smiled, someone who would whisper sweet nothings in your ear at midnight under the stars.

I wish and it terrifies me in a way that no one holding a blade to my throat ever has.

But I'm a killer and a girl, and a god, an orphan, and a teacher, and a teenager, and a woman, and a child,  _and a wife, and a human, and a student, and a savior, and a mother._

And a friend, and a girlfriend, and an enemy.

And completely and utterly lost.

How do I find room in there for you?

Whatever we had for those few weeks… it was built on lies, Hunter. Whoever I was with you…  _I_  was a lie.

Casey stopped existing the moment a blue light flashed and she was no longer in a cave, watching the shadows of her best friend and a traitor play on a wall too large for this world.

 _That's_  the truth. That's the big mystery of me. I hang my head.

You must have seen it.

My eyes flickering to you every few seconds. The knot in my throat as I tried to swallow it down again and again. The wrestling of my eyebrows. My lips thinning. Fists clenching. The uncertainty, the hesitation, the  _pain_  flowing through my every vein.

You must have seen all of it because, with a small, tight smile and a quiet swallow that nevertheless echoes in my ears a thousand times later on, you get up and walk away so that I don't have to.

A weight lifts off me and I look after you until the last sunset strand of your hair is gone from sight, and I would have stayed there forever, plaguing myself with questions about you. Maybe I'm not ready to find them. Maybe you knew that.

Maybe you're amazing.

Even as gratitude for taking the decision out of my hands rushes through me, a part of me yearns to gather my strength and run after you, and tell you that I'm okay and in love with you, and that you've always given me the hope when I had only cold determination.

The rest of me strangles this urge mercilessly and directs my strength instead to getting back to my dorm room. This isn't the time for your arms, Hunter. I don't know if it will ever be.

But I do know this is a time for Jade's.

_somewhere, i'm so afraid of you…_

* * *

 

**05.**

I still don't make a habit of getting out of this top bunk.

My dreams are a graveyard of experiences lost and wishes unfulfilled, and, in those rare times that I fully wake up from my subconscious' overtime work in sorting me out, I'm too exhausted to even  _think_  about setting foot outside the blankets.

Instead, one day I ask Jade to dig out an old picture of my parents and me. Every background detail brings back a clearer memory of the day it was taken—at a theme park when I was seven— even the creases on the worn paper make it easier to remember, and I cry myself back to an arduous and extensive sleep as I look at our happy faces. Day after day, hour after hour, the picture never leaves my hands.

Pamela tries to stab me once.

Jade manages to severely wound the psycho in a way that closely resembles one form of self-injury or another. She mutters something about Zoe while calling for Miss Dagney and whispers in Pamela's ear while they wait, and the other girl never tries any kind of funny business with me again.

I barely even notice. I just stare at the faces of happy Blevinses.

My parents made it through a teenage pregnancy. And a shotgun wedding. And a prodigy daughter. And two career changes, and five broken bones, and numerous attractive coworkers, and letting their daughter go, and dying together because of their daughter's recklessness, and  _I've still never seen any two people who love each other more_.

Would they have wanted this?

Seeing their death through three different eyes—or four, or however many pairs I have in my possession at this point—has made me wonder…

Maybe instead of righteous, my crusade was impulsive and blind. Selfish.

They're dead. Whoever is truly responsible for their death—me, Hodge, Daramount, Abraham, the inevitability of fate, some other unknown force—they're  _dead_. And even after all that I went through, after all that I lost, I couldn't bring them back.

Not yet, anyway.

But  _would_  they want to be alive again, if that path was marred with so much destruction done in their name? Would they want to return to a daughter who was capable of doing it? A daughter capable of doing it in  _their name_?

For the first time, I'm not entirely sure I want to know the answer.

There was nothing I wouldn't have done to end this. To get them back. To stop the death and pain plaguing us all.

But, in the end, all I did was lose my limits, my boundaries, and the sight of what I was trying to accomplish in the first place. And that's just what I did to myself, the rest of the world notwithstanding.

 _Nothing_. The word echoes in my mind.

I've been replaying all my lives over and over again—in my sleep, in brief waking moments—and I can't shy away from the truth anymore. When the safe word doesn't exist, when  _it's never over_ , when nobody puts a stop to it… at some point fighting for something  _must_  become fighting because there's no other way to live.

I already knew I was played. But was I wrong in allowing myself to be? In the measures I took?

Could there have been  _any_  other way?

I stare at Mom's net of tan lines. She had a dozen swimsuits of every shape and color, and could never remember to take the straps off when friends invited her to the beach or I pulled her into the backyard for a game of frisbee. Whichever bikini top she preferred that day would leave its mark and, one by one, they made her body a living testament to how much Mom loved the sun.

Other couples call each other "babe" or "honey". Dad would always call her Webby, at least in the summer. And, for most of my childhood, I had never seen a more beautiful photo than the one he took of her in the basement at twilight—her back bare, riddled with paler streaks of varying shades, and half covered with blond curls. When her small smile illuminated the room more brilliantly than the dying sunlight.

I used to know that photo well enough I could describe every pixel. Every time I went down the stairs from my room, I would spend at least seven seconds taking its beauty in from the wall. I don't think I've ever looked at it without a smile on my face. Not even once.

Even now, I'm sure seeing her radiant beauty through the lens of Dad's obvious love would make my heart swell with pride. And longing. And joy.

They might be gone, but they always had each other. Maybe still do, somewhere I can't reach. Nothing can change that connection.

Does that picture still exist, I wonder? I don't harbor any illusions about Lara bringing it to me from home, but somehow the mere notion of proof that they were here, that they loved each other, that they  _mattered_  still being out there, somewhere, is enough to comfort me.

Because I no longer consider myself proof of any of it. I'm an anomaly, not a miracle.

My eyes fall back to the picture wrinkled between my fingers that I've studied ten thousand times. To the guy in the far background who's checking Dad out. To the glossy scoop of ice cream dribbling down my fingers and onto the pier because I'm too busy smiling for the picture to remember it's in my hands. To Mom's arm slung carelessly over Dad's shoulder, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

A tear drops to the paper and I quickly swipe it away with my thumb, terrified it'll ruin the picture more than my fingers already have.

No. There was nothing I wouldn't have done. Barely anything I  _didn't_  do.

But, from this day forward, I will do  _nothing_  to end this. Not until I can do it and still be who they raised me to be. Until I can make them—and myself—proud.

They deserve better.

In the meantime, I sleep less and less with every passing day. My days are filled with listening to Jade complain about Ike in between going to secret meetings with him (because that's apparently a thing they do now), trying not to see David in my own happy, childish face in the picture, perking my ears up whenever Jade mentions you to Pamela, and just  _thinking_.

A lot.

I never would have thought a change of perspective could have such a profound effect on anyone. Invoke such change.

The memories don't tear at me anymore. They don't twist and claw and break me open. And in all these ruins, I finally feel like I can find enough bricks and stone and tar to build something new. Something stronger.

Someone who could withstand the loss and the pain, and come out of it with a reflection they still recognize.

So instead, the memories search for their place in a me that is not equal to the sum of my parts. And once they find it, they settle calmly and peacefully there, dutifully building me up from the ground to rise once again.

My name is Casey Blevins and, make no mistake, I  _will_  rise again.

I will save those who need saving and punish those who have evaded punishment for too long, and I will burn this place  _to the ground_ , if that's what it takes, but my trust is not something I'll give away like flyers this time.

 _This time_ , I'm believing myself before anyone else.

I'm not a child anymore, you see. I don't know what I am, but I won't allow myself to be a pawn any longer. I've gone to the edge of the board and I'm returning as a queen.

My name is Casey Blevins and I will live up to that name, in all its possible origins.

But, for now, I snuggle deeper into my blankets and pretend that they're Mom's arms.

I'm eight years old and babbling excitedly about some discovery I've made when I should be going to bed, and Dad's sitting right where the wallpaper on the Academy's walls is slightly peeled, right where the shadows of the bed frame form a cross, and even when they hold me down to keep me from jumping upright in my nightgown at the slightest provocation, I feel their love.

There's no way to go back to that moment. I've  _been_  to that moment, I watched it happen outside the window from my shadows, and still it made no difference. I was an outsider.

I will never be eight years old and laughing in my parents' arms again.

But that feeling… that's a different story. I want it back. I want to be someone who can feel it. I want to find someone, something that can evoke it in me. Happiness.

 _That's_  what I want, I think with a small smile at the picture that never leaves my arms.

Sleep overtakes me once again and I let it. It heals. I need healing. Sleep is a dear and welcome friend in my head. And the last image I consciously register before everything turns black is a redheaded boy in a hoodie telling me dumb jokes that make soda come out of my nostrils.

_all i want is one place to be loud, to be loved, to be safe_

* * *

 

**00.**

A knock on the doorframe.

"Hi," I say, leaning against it.

You drop the book you were holding. Red creeps up your neck as your eyes zero in on me.

"Uh." You clear your throat and run fingers through your hair. "Hi."

The breeze from an open window flutters my hair.

I wait.

"Hi," I repeat because nothing else comes to mind.

The door falls shut behind me. We both jolt.

You gulp and link your fingers in front of your abdomen. "Hi."

The book balances awkwardly on your foot and you don't even look like you've noticed that it fell on you. But I watch as you bend down to pick it up with jerky movements, never taking your eyes off me.

Are you afraid I'll disappear?

Well. That's fair, I suppose.

I stare at my feet and take small but deliberate steps into your room.

"Is— Um, are you okay?" you ask, hips searching for a table to lean against.

"I will be," I say and I  _mean_  it. You nod, but that pucker between your eyebrows shows no sign of disappearing. "That's actually what I wanted to talk you about."

"And you thought giving me a heart attack was the best way to initiate a conversation?"

Always the charmer. "There are worse icebreakers." I frown. "I think."

"Yeah, let me know when you find them." You cross and uncross your ankles in between peeking up at me. "So. Hrem. What is it, exactly, that you wanted to talk about?"

"To apologize, first of all."

Your head flies up immediately.

"For  _what?_ "

I blink. "Hunter, I haven't spoken to you in nearly two months. Don't tell me you didn't  _notice_ ," I add with the hint of a chuckle in my voice.

"Oh." You straighten. "That. Yeah, well…"

Your shoulders slump and you grit your teeth.

I can't figure out whether you're about to say something or not, so I do. "That was... grossly unfair to you, I know, and I didn't mean—"

"Look, look, I'm gonna stop you right there." You hold up a palm. "If this talk is just gonna be you berating yourself for taking time alone to recover from what all the evidence in my possession would lead me to believe is  _significant_  trauma, then I want no part of it."

I catch your gaze.

"I mean," you say quickly, "if that's where you were going with that. Uh." You sink into your desk, hand flying to your neck. "Continue."

"That was part one of my three-part objective, yes," I say, playing with your bedpost. "So I'm assuming I can skip it?"

You put on that weird expression where you're almost glowering at me, but not quite, because you're Hunter and you're physically incapable of being actually, truly mad at me. " _Yeah_."

"Fine. Although I  _do_  want you to know I wish I had handled it better."

You frown. "Casey—"

"We were  _dating_ , Hunter!" I sit on Jun's bed, ducking my head under yours. "It's not like you're my third cousin from Milwaukee that I only talk to once every three years," I mutter, clapping my knee before I realize you've turned silent.

 _Crap_.

"Were," is all you whisper in a voice that sends sharp pangs up my spine.

"Hunter, I didn't m—"

"No,  _no_ , it's totally—" You suck in a breath. "I was just… still unclear on that part. I mean. Good." You nod. "That we cleared that up." A weak laugh escapes you. " _Gotcha._ "

You seem to have shrunk with every word.

I stare at my fingers, twisting together in my lap. "That's the… second thing I wanted to talk to you about."

No money in this world could make me look at your expression right just then.

"Yeah. Sure. Shoot." Your voice fades on the last word.

"Shoot," I repeat. "That's kind of the problem, I guess."

I stand up and smooth out my uniform.

Your gaze is fixed intently to something that isn't me.

The breeze rustles your hair.

I sigh.

"I'm not the Casey you knew, Hunter," I say. "It's… important that you know that."

"How so?" you ask, voice tight.

"I know this might be asking too much," I start, heart heavy, "or that you probably have no reason to consider it, but I just… I want to start fresh."

You finally look up at me.

"I'm not the same," I continue, pacing across the room now. "I don't know  _what_  the heck I am. But I was wrong when I told you I just inherited a few million memories." I close the damn window and cross my arms. "It's not like they were just tacked onto the person I was before I left. I'm someone completely new."

"You are?"

"Yeah. At least—I don't know—I  _think_  so," I say and hesitantly step over to your desk, leaning against it as well. "I don't entirely know who I am and… it's scary and confusing, and a little bit exciting, and I'm probably gonna be discovering myself for a long time."

"I'm sure Ike would find  _some_  way to turn that into an innuendo," you mutter.

I chuckle. "Yeah. The thing is, Hunter, I'd really like for you to be there when I do."

Your head snaps up and to the right. To me.

Is that hurt or suspicion in your eyes?

"And with that said…" I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and, for the first time since It happened, feel like a teenager again. "I think that we should go out on a date," I declare. "Together."

You freeze.

Again, I wait. But this time I won't break the silence.

"... Oh."

You huff out a breath and look straight forward.

"Wow. That's…" you mutter. "Wow."

Before peeking back at me.

"Explain, please?"

I cautiously put my hand over yours on the desk and it's only then that I realize how cold it is. You jolt, but don't snatch it away.

"I'm not the same as I was," I repeat. "It's  _really_  important that you understand that. You should just, like, forget everything you know about me. You know, blank page and all that. 'Hi, I'm Casey.'"

You chuckle.

"But I want to start over. With us." I swallow quietly. " _You're_  really important."

"I am?" you ask, voice hoarse, and I look back up at you.

"You have no idea," I whisper.

It's funny because you just got that look in your eye that says you're  _this close_  to kissing me, and I hope you won't because  _fresh beginnings_  and all that, but at the same time the mere idea that you would want to, even after all that we've been through—that I've  _put you_  through—sends twinkly tingles up my arm from where your warm hand is holding mine.

I almost lean closer myself.

"What about…" You look away. "What about the other guy?"

And the moment's over. My eyes close with a sigh.

"I don't know," I say truthfully. "Tom was—is—someone I think about often. And my relationship with him is a part of me—will always be—but at the same time, it's not, because I was so far from being me then."

I bite my lip.

"I mean, even if I  _do_  still have feelings for him—which is very very possible," I say and you flinch, "I'm not who he fell in love with. And I don't want to be. You know?" I look at my knees. "I was so far gone. And putting on a front for him and the rest of the world on top of it. And I just. don't. want that. It's exhausting."

I take a deep breath and release it in one gust, dragging fingers through my messy curls

"Yeah, did I mention I have a lot of sorting out to do?" I shake my head with a laugh. "I don't know about the other guy, Hunter," I say. "I honestly don't. But he's not here. And…" I take a deep breath. "If he were, but  _you_  weren't, I'm not sure I'd like that better."

You play with our linked fingers, your warm and my cold ones. Together, they provide relief.

I'd forgotten how  _nice_  that felt.

"I just know that you're… you," I say. "And I want to be with you." I bite my lip. "But I'm getting ahead of myself here. We haven't even gone on a date yet. You don't even know if you'd like me now. Blank page, remember?"

I think I hear you stifle a laugh.

"You're not a blank page, Case."

You look at me the way you always have. With eyes that see into my very core and adore what they find.

"People change," you say. "That's just life. But you could never change into someone I wouldn't wanna be with." You lift our hands. "And I don't think you're that different in the first place. You're still  _you_. Maybe you've just… filled out." You smile, staring into my eyes.

My fingertips heat up as my heart yanks my body closer to you with every beat, and I bite my lower lip. The strings in my chest are wound tighter than they've ever been, but you know just how to pull on them. Without even  _trying_. The resulting mass of music and nerves almost makes me forget Tom ever existed.

"I'm sure Ike would find a way to turn  _that_  into an innuendo," I mutter to bite back tears.

You burst out laughing—genuine, bubbling giggles—and I suddenly remember how much I've missed the sound.

The next moment my lips are on yours and my fingers are in your hair, and, when you whisper my name under your breath, it's a sigh instead of a beg.

I pull back and rest my forehead against yours.

"I was thinking that we could go have that picnic you always wanted," I say against your mouth. "I could even pick you up, make sure you're not late."

You smile. "Ah. Does this deluxe offer include protection from bullies?"

"I'm sure we can work something out," I say, eyes fixed to your lips.

You kiss me, once, twice, again, and it's light and soft, and  _right_. And I glide into you until my jaw rests on your shoulder and my arms are wound around your back, and your fingers run through my hair, and we're both twisted awkwardly on the desk, side by side, but it doesn't matter because you're holding me.

"Can I just stay with you for a while?"

You pull me closer. " _Always._ "

It's not my imagination this time, not wishful thinking that I could someday let you in. This is  _real_.

But I don't cry. I have better things to do.

Like brushing my cheek against yours and feeling the sparks swim through my body, igniting everything in their path. Or inhaling your scent and getting lost in thought about what it's made of.

Or allowing myself to fall—stupidly, terrifyingly, and perilously.

_we're back where we started and i'm starting to call you... "home"_

* * *

 

_i have been dreaming of all i could have done differently; i only ever seem to say what i mean while you sleep. i'm not a wreck, but i'm far from fully healed. i found these ghosts in me, these memories i can't keep. i'm learning confidence; i'm only learning now how to bite back the bitterness… the weight of the crown of fools. i can't express the weight of this silence, but when it's filled with your breath i seem to fear it less. ...rhythmic footsteps? i'm so damn restless. but i'm starting to call you home. i know how hard it is; i'm living through the ache of the worries and uncertainties that keep you awake, my love. you and i are different, but that shouldn't hurt again; i am more than in love and i'll be as sweet as i can for you. i think there's a way to make you more than mostly happy; i'll do anything at all, anything at all! somewhere, i'm so afraid of you; you keep losing sight of the breakthrough, as if long drives and quoting lines from our music is not worth working for. all i want is one place to be loud, to be loved, to be safe, and i am so hoping… i'm so hoping… open-hearted, waters uncharted, we're back where we started and i'm starting to call you "home"_

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by (and largely written to) [Lost & Found](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNHsHumAsX8) by Horizon (Ashley Lyons).


End file.
